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Just A Thought ~ 2009 >
January 2009 ~ The Gift of Life ~ A New Year
January 2009 ~ The Gift of Life ~ A New Year
The Gift Of Life ~ A New Year
January 2009
Sun2Soul Transitions Newsletter
It’s that time of year when many of us make those half hearted promises to ourselves to get back on the scales of life and, after a year or so of seeing how we measure up, we attempt to please that insatiable fear that says we’re just not that happy. Whether it be the extra pounds to whittle away, the promise to take the time out of our hamster wheel lives and read the kids a bedtime story every night, walk the dog more often or clean the garage (again), we seem to assess and re-assess where we are and determine that something needs to change in our lives to make us happy. And I whole heartedly agree ~ something does need to change.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I watched a mini-documentary about a woman I met last year at the nail salon. Each conversation would provide tidbits of insights for me of a long life filled with learned lessons and I stress the word “learned.” Shirley did not go into detail during our handfuls of fifteen minute conversations yet she chose to share with me a mini-documentary that had been made about her life several years ago. Without revealing too much about Shirley, for the sake of privacy, she is a woman who has experienced quite a lot of personal loss throughout her life. She has outlived not only her three husbands but also four children and, as she told me, she is “38 years old ~ backwards.”
While watching the video nestled in the pines of Happy Jack, I felt many emotions as I watched her describe her life with a quiet beauty and grace and I was able to sense her titanic strength of will and endurance. Shirley never succumbed to the grief, the sadness, the loneliness, or the pain though she experienced countless emotions during the course of her loss of her first infant, and then several years later her second child drowned when he was about nine. Another son died in a car accident before he turned twenty, and the middle son died when he was forty-seven years old.
Realistically, we expect to lose our parents or our spouses at some point, but we expect and hope to outlive our children. The loss of a child is the one thing you never plan to experience. Shirley has lost four children ~ there are no more children for her to lose.
What keeps Shirley going…what keeps her alive…what keeps her still in all of the commotions of life? In the video Shirley states that even she has wondered from time to time why she still has her faith. She does not accept the fact that these events were “God’s will” yet she walks firmly in her faith carrying a strength and knowingness that even she had to realize there was a decision that needed to be made by her, at some point. There was a choice to be made each time as to how to go on with her life and she called upon her God to give her the strength to carry on.
What keeps you alive? What keeps you going when all hell breaks loose or freezes over? Is it your job, your friends, your aging parents, your loving spouse, an addiction, or the look in your children eyes? What happens to you when that special someone is not around at the precise moment to guide you along on your journey? Shirley says that, for her, the difference was that she made a decision to enjoy life. Her nephew lovingly adds in the video that Shirley focuses on what has been given to her instead of what has been taken away…
The documentary prefaced with an anonymous quote as follows:
“Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.”
If you haven’t made your New Year’s resolution yet or, even if you have, consider the possibility of choosing to make the effort to be happy ~happiness is not just a thought ~ it is an ongoing action, it takes effort, it takes time, it takes dedication, it takes perseverance, and commitment. It doesn’t just “happen” to you or “happen” because of someone else’s decisions to stay with you or leave you. It happens because you choose to make a change to interact with life and allow those things, relationships and memories that no longer serve you to fade away so you will have plenty of room to welcome in new experiences. Life is the journey that leads us to our destination and not just the life that happens when we are busy making other plans.
Allow other people in your life to choose their own way, with or without you, happy or not, as they say, misery loves company but I think that your genuine happiness makes you a true friend, companion and spouse.
Take back your power. And live in the power of this moment now.
Make your choice today ~ for the New Year ~ and, instead of attempting to resolve some of your other superficial issues, apply your freedom to choose life daily and your dreams of happiness, love, fulfillment, and peace will begin to enter into your new life.
After Thought:
The morning before I watched Shirley’s video and wrote this newsletter I was walking with my dog, Sophie, in the woods behind the cabin in Happy Jack. Enjoying the cold weather and the comforting silence of nature God gently spoke to me and said “Look around and see what you find” and I continued to walk slowly as I scanned the path seeing what treasure was being revealed to me. “Stop…stop now…look down.”
I then stopped in my tracks with Sophie beside me and habitually sought for a monetary gift or a lost jewel. As my eyes slowly retreated towards my feet I heard softly and lovingly “You have the Gift of Life.”
I felt a presence of life, love, expansion, joy and peace and reflected on the moment as I was living in the moment and saw that Sophie was sitting beside me as if she was sensing something, as well.
I felt the connection…
They say God works in “strange” ways. For me, on that chilly November morning just before Thanksgiving, I found that God works sometimes in simple and miraculous ways.
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For those of you who may be interested in reading some biblical verses that have assisted me throughout the years
Inspirational scriptures from the Bible (New King James Version)
“For we walk by faith, not by sight” is a verse from 2 Corinthians 5:7
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed~ always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”
2 Cor 4: 7-10
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Cor 4:16-18
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Create your genuine journey ~ beginning now.
Michaelene
Intuitive Consultant (Personal, Business, Hospice)
Read My Current Newsletter ~ Just A Thought
www.Sun2SoulTransitions.com
Copyright 2009
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